


A Different Shade of Blonde

by furies



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Exposition, ghosts of girlfriends past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-24
Updated: 2006-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:46:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furies/pseuds/furies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Different comes in all shapes and sizes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Shade of Blonde

**Author's Note:**

> post-s5. hints of casey/olivia. everyone likes a little exposition now and then. quasiradiant provided dvds and marathons and backstory and betaing that was invaluable. though i did do a little of the work myself.

_“I think they think I must be out of touch/But I’m only in the outskirts/And in the fringes, on the edge/And off the avenue/And if you want me/You can find me/Left of center/Wondering about you”  
(suzanne vega)_

*

When Casey told her stylist she wanted a change, she didn’t expect to come out blonde. And it certainly wasn’t to look more like Alex Cabot, the ADA That Could Do No Wrong.

Well, Alex is dead, and Casey was what they got, and now she’s a blonde and she isn’t sure she likes it, but she doesn’t have the guts to go back to the salon and demand her red coloring back. Besides, she kind of liked the shocked stares she received first returning to work, and Olivia’s stammered, “You look different.”

Casey’s used to being called different.

She’s different here, even though her office has become her home away from home, and when Olivia first told her that you don’t get used to these cases, she went to her apartment and prayed that she was wrong. But Olivia was right, and these cases are everywhere, under her fingernails and in her hair.

Casey doesn’t fit in. She’s used to that though, she’s never quite fit in, even though she’s lived her entire life in this city. Even though all she’s ever wanted was to be lawyer, and work for the good guys. Even though she gave up an offer for an associate on a partner track at Kirkland and Ellis, the swanky Upper East Side firm she was a summer associate at her first year. Even though she gave it up to take a low level low paying job as an ADA. Even though she worked her way up through White Collar, Felonies, and finally to SVU - which she isn’t sure was an upgrade or a punishment, but Burger was confident in his decision and Casey figured it was working for the good guys.

Some days she rides her bike to work, all the way downtown, weaving through the rush hour traffic from 85th and Amsterdam to 1 Hogan Place. There is a baseball bat in her office at all times, and sometimes at lunch she heads to Chelsea Piers and takes a few swings in the cages. There is something about the sound of the ball hitting her bat that pleases her, and the feeling in her arms, her muscles, reminds her that she’s alive when she‘s always surrounded by so much death.

She did all this before being assigned to SVU, but now it seems to have taken on more relevance. She bought another bat, and this one she keeps by her bed. Olivia has her gun, and Casey has her bat. She knows there’s an inequality in this, but it’s just another that Casey suffers, being on the outskirts of the SVU unit, only brought in when someone wants something from her. A warrant, an affidavit, a court order, someone to blame.

They think the cold cases are all their own, but Casey has to live them too. No, she doesn’t go out to crime scenes anymore and she doesn’t try to fit in in the squad room. She’s not a detective. She doesn’t see the dead bodies. She argues for them, she fights for them, and in her own way, she bleeds for them, but no one will ever grant her the privilege of calling them her own.

But then she was beaten, and suddenly she was part of the team. Suddenly they worried about her. Casey tries to pretend it’s not the ghost of Alex Cabot that keeps them protective. It’s true that Olivia has warmed up to her - after all, she was out getting them coffee when the attack came. And it’s true that Elliot smiles at her now and then, and Munch - well, Munch is Munch.

Cragen keeps gin in his office for her, Tanqueray 10, even. Casey never lets on that she has her own bottle in her office, shuffling bottles in her briefcase, and there’s the stash in her apartment. She makes herself martinis after work, but only drinks beer in the company of her coworkers, sharing in a pitcher on the rare occasion when they invite her out with them.

Usually she says no just to avoid the discomfort of sitting there and pretending she belongs, but lately she’s been agreeing, craving human contact, social interaction, the feeling of a laugh at the back of her throat.

Lately Olivia’s taken to asking her for a drink, after everyone else has begged off or gone home and it’s just the two of them, and Casey’s been turning her down, but it occurs to her that perhaps Olivia’s just as lonely as she is. Isn’t that what she said that first night? Nothing past a first date - they either drew away, or were too interested. And ever since Elliot and Kathy split, things between Olivia and Elliot have been guarded. Casey understands that she’s safe, she’s someone that understands, but not too much, and she isn’t Elliot, and she isn’t Alex Cabot.

So Casey takes her up on an offer and they sit in a booth. Casey’s legs are crossed. They hit the bottom of the table but she can’t uncross them, not with Olivia so close. Olivia makes her guard go up even as Casey settles down with a beer. There’s something about her that is calculating, something that is all hard edges and sharp angles, something that Casey will never understand.

Casey has always been told she’s soft, yelled at when she’s caught off balance and unable to say anything in her defense. She’s no push-over, but she pleads out when her detectives ask and she pretends to play hard ball and demand evidence, but she would go to court with nothing for these people.

These people who are suddenly all she has.

Olivia is talking about possibly moving apartments, saying she wants more space, and Casey doesn’t ask, what for? These people have little in their lives outside their jobs, their jobs that even interrupt their sleep, their homes, their privacy. Casey begins to see herself as the job, and that’s when she goes to the cages, ripping the hell off of every bright softball thrown at her.

Casey never misses unless she means to.

And then there is pressure on Casey’s leg, Olivia’s shoe traveling up her calf, and Casey coughs, startled, beer caught in the back of her throat. She puts down her glass and avoids Olivia’s eyes. Stares at the amber liquid and wonders if that’s what this is all about, this friendship, this show of camaraderie, if everything in this world, even outside of SVU, is about sex and politics.

Casey isn’t Alex. She doesn’t want the higher office, she’s not as skinny, she doesn’t wear glasses, she doesn’t go home with Olivia after a perfectly rough night. And Casey might be soft, but she’s not weak, and she looks Olivia in the eyes and says, “Liv, please.”

Olivia’s eyes are startled and instantly clouded. Casey immediately regrets the words, regrets her decision, because wasn’t she just thinking about how she wanted human contact, the feeling of flesh against flesh, the soft moans, air against damp skin? And now, with Olivia, what does this mean, where does this leave them? Casey can’t deny she’s thought about kissing Olivia’s delicate neck, tracing the creases behind her knees. To see her out of her everyday cop attire, with the hard angles and defense posturing, to see her in soft colors, exposed skin other than hands and neck and arms.

“Liv, it’s just -” She doesn’t know what to say. It’s just that I’m a lonely girl with a bad dye job and I don’t want you feeling sorry for me? It’s just that I don’t need a pity fuck, it’s just that you look at me with those eyes and I can’t tell if it’s hate or lust and you carry a gun and I carry a briefcase.

She tries again. “Olivia, it’s not that - you know that - it’s just, it can’t be about how I got beat-up and now I’m another one of your victims you give your home number to.”

Olivia leans back against the hard wooden booth. Her head hits with a soft thud. Her eyes are closed. “That‘s what you think of me? That I would come on to you just to make you feel a little better?” Olivia throws her hands up in the air, instantly back in the moment. “I do what I want, Casey. And I wanted you. And you finally came and don’t tell me you haven’t had the same thoughts because I’ve been a detective while you were still writing pathetic little case briefs in your ivory tower and you don’t keep your ass from getting killed without being able to read people.” Olivia’s tone is biting, rough, and Casey wonders if this is how she talks to the suspects when she gets close enough. She’s always thought Elliot was the bad cop, Olivia the good cop in the interrogation room, but now she’s not so sure. Now she’s a little afraid of the woman scorning her with a Glock at her side.

“I’m not Alex, Liv.” It comes out of nowhere, but it comes out honest, because Casey always thinks Olivia looks at her hoping to see Alex. As if she could squint hard enough, Casey would look enough like Alex to make Olivia happy again. “I’m never going to be. I’m your replacement ADA who constantly pisses you off and happened to end up blonde one day by mistake. Don’t think I haven’t heard the rumors. I might not have been an ADA for an eternity and yes, three years in a classroom is different from six months at the Academy and then being thrown on the street. But I worked my way up too, and even in the lowly offices of White Collar crime word gets around. You don’t have to be a detective to pick up on things.” Casey’s voice is harsh to her ears, and she’s trying to stand up for herself and her actions, trying to show that she has a backbone, but she hates herself for bringing up Alex, for always comparing herself to Alex, because Alex is dead, and how can Casey compete with a ghost?

Olivia’s eyes are like steel. “If I wanted Alex Cabot, do you think I would be coming to you?”

And Casey recoils against the words, sloshing her beer across the table. She fumbles at the clasps on her briefcase to leave money for the drinks, but her fingers aren’t working and she doesn’t know how much to leave anyway, but she has to get out because there’s Olivia and Casey has just made it all wrong, all so very wrong.

Casey, who has suddenly lost everything.

She stops for a moment, takes a deep breath. She can‘t go home like this. She can‘t leave it like this. This was the first time she felt like she belonged. “Olivia, I didn’t mean it like that. You know I didn’t. I’m just, I’m not good with these sort of things and you caught me off guard and I’m so afraid, you know, of falling, of failing, and well, of you -”

Olivia reaches across the table and grabs Casey’s hands. “No one ever expected you to be good at this.”

Casey, well-versed in double-talk, understands the implication. She sighs. Thinks about apologizing, but figures she‘s said enough. “I should go.” She has an empty apartment to return to, an empty martini glass to fill, a lone window air-conditioner to turn on. She grabs her briefcase and stands.

As she passes Olivia, Olivia reaches out and grabs her wrist. Casey pauses a moment, and then looks down. Olivia is staring at Casey’s wrist. “You aren’t failing, you know. Everything just takes time.” And she traces her fingers along Casey’s palm.

“You know, I never wanted you to be Alex Cabot. I wanted you to be Casey Novak. You’re all I’ve got now. You’re all we’ve all got.”

“And that makes me a very tired woman.” Casey squeezes Olivia’s hand in something resembling a handshake, some sort of pact, a promise. “But next time, the drinks are on me.”

Tomorrow, Casey thinks, she’ll ride her bike to work. And she’ll say hello to Olivia, and Elliot and the rest, and maybe something will be different. Maybe she won’t wonder what Alex would have done, what Alex would have said.

Maybe, just maybe, Casey will be enough.


End file.
